Death Penalty News

Richard Glossip has had his last meal three times. It may be four if the US Supreme Court doesn’t agree at its private conference Tuesday to hear the Oklahoma death row inmate’s latest appeal. Glossip’s execution dates have been blocked nine times, most recently by the high court in May, since he was convicted in 1998 of hiring a man to kill the owner of the motel he managed. But his case is unusual: only one other inmate has had an execution put on hold since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, giving President Donald Trump his third appointment to cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.

The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution protects us from “cruel and unusual punishment” by the government. This seemingly simple language raises a host of complicated questions. “Cruel” by what standard? “Unusual” in what sense? Does this provision have a fixed meaning? Or does its meaning change over time? History offers a few clues. In 1689, England adopted a Declaration of Rights that prohibited “cruel and unusual punishments.” Some of the Founders argued that we needed a similar provision in our own Bill of Rights.

The vacancy will give President Biden his first chance to name a new justice. He has promised to nominate a Black woman. WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire, two people familiar with the decision said, providing President Biden a chance to make good on his pledge to name a Black woman to the court. Mr. Biden is expected to formally announce the retirement at the White House on Thursday, according to one person familiar with the planning for the event. Justice Breyer, 83, the oldest member of the court, was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020 and the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett by President Donald J. Trump, he became the subject of an energetic campaign by liberals who wanted him to step down to ensure that Mr. Biden could name his successor while Democrats control the Senate. With conservatives now in full control of the court,...

(CNN) -- The Supreme Court's dramatic 5-4 action leaving a Texas abortion ban in place at midnight Wednesday establishes that the Roberts Court no longer is Roberts' Court. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented with three liberal justices in what could be regarded as the least considered but most consequential case in years. Since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court last October and he lost his position at the ideological center of the bench, Roberts has been on the dissenting side in a handful of close cases. But the Texas abortion controversy arguably marked his most significant loss to date. The court's order, made public to news organizations at 11:58 p.m. ET, leaves in place a law that Roberts, himself a conservative who has consistently opposed abortion rights, described as "unprecedented."  Texas prohibits abortions after six weeks and, equally significant for judicial review, appears to insulate state officials from lawsuits over its unconstitutional...

Ruling breaks with precedents and illustrates the impact of Donald Trump’s appointments of three conservative judges The newly conservative-leaning US supreme court has declined to place new limits on sentencing juveniles to life in prison with no chance of parole, marking a break with the court’s previous rulings which had been gradually moving towards more leniency for minors over the past two decades. In a ruling that illustrated the impact of the appointments of three justices by former president Donald Trump, the high court ruled to reject arguments by Brett Jones of Mississippi, who was convicted of killing his grandfather at age 15 and is serving a sentence of life without parole. The court’s six conservatives were in the majority, with the three liberal members dissenting. The justices rejected arguments by Jones, that his sentence violated the constitution’s Eighth amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment because the judge in his trial had not made the finding that he was...

President Joe Biden announced the formation of a commission last week to study the court's structure, including the number of justices and their length of service. WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats will introduce legislation Thursday to expand the Supreme Court from nine to 13 justices, joining progressive activists pushing to transform the court. The move intensifies a high-stakes ideological fight over the future of the court after President Donald Trump and Republicans appointed three conservative justices in four years, including one who was confirmed days before the 2020 election. The Democratic bill is led by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. It is co-sponsored by Reps. Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mondaire Jones of New York. The Supreme Court can be expanded by an act of Congress, but the legislation is highly unlikely to become law in the near future given Democrats' slim majorities, which in...

The US Senate has confirmed Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in a victory for President Donald Trump a week before the presidential election. Mr Trump's fellow Republicans voted 52-48 to approve the judge, overcoming the unified opposition of Democrats. Her appointment seals for the foreseeable future a 6-3 conservative majority on the top US judicial body. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called the move rushed and unprecedented. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said that by going ahead with the vote so close to the election the Republican majority was "lighting its credibility on fire". Justice Barrett, 48, took the oath of office at the White House alongside President Trump. Only one Republican, Senator Susan Collins, who faces a tough re-election battle in Maine, voted against the president's nominee in Monday evening's vote. The new justice is the third appointed by the Republican president, after Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Ka...

The US Supreme Court is often the last say on major cases that impact public life. So what kind of justice might President Trump's nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett be? From abortion to gun rights, here's a look at what she's said about major issues in the past. On her judicial philosophy Speaking in 2016 at Jacksonville University's Public Policy Institute , she told students judges should not be appointed based on policy preferences. "We should be putting people on the court who want to apply the Constitution." In her opening statement on 12 October, she tied herself once more to the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who she worked for as a clerk. "His judicial philosophy was straightforward: A judge must apply the law as written, not as the judge wishes it were. Sometimes that approach meant reaching results that he did not like. "But as he put it in one of his best known opinions, that is what it means to say we have a governm...

The battle to get Donald Trump's nominee to the US Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed by the Senate begins on Monday. The shifting ideological balance of the court will have an impact in all areas of American life and across the US - perhaps in no place more than Texas. Susan Lippman, a Democratic activist in Austin, Texas, was sitting in her car when she heard the news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. "I'm not too emotional," she says. "But I let fly. I was raging and screaming. Pounding the steering wheel." Lippman instantly knew the impact that the loss of Ginsburg, a liberal legal icon, would have on the ideological composition of the court. If Donald Trump could successfully replace her with his choice for a justice, it would secure the conservative tilt of the top US judicial body for a generation. So, a week after Ginsburg's death, Lippman and her friend, Debbie White, were heading to protest outside the office of...